During its June 25, 2015 meeting, the governing body of The Law Society of Upper Canada, which regulates Ontario lawyers, approved the creation of a task force to study compliance-based entity regulation (and another Task Force to promote wellness and address mental health and addiction issues.) The LSUC action was based on a report found here which was prepared by the Law Society’s Policy Secretariat and contains useful background information and a proposed structure for each task force.

The information about the task force on compliance-based entity regulation starts on p. 8. The Report explains at paragraphs 30-31 that “Compliance based regulation shifts regulatory emphasis from responding to complaints and enforcement through discipline to a proactive approach in which goals, expectations and tools for licensees are established. This means that licensees can themselves ensure that they have appropriate systems and processes in place to achieve regulatory compliance. Compliance-based regulation has been generally been implemented together with entity regulation. The goal is the improvement of regulatory results through a set of defined objectives that all legal services providers seek to achieve, on the basis that practice processes and systems are most effectively addressed at the firm or entity level.” See here.

The LSUC press release about the new Task Force is found here. For information showing US interest in proactive lawyer regulation, see the Session 1 materials from the ABA CPR’s 40th National Conference on Professional Responsibility held in Long Beach and a forthcoming Entity Regulation FAQ document that will be posted on the National Organization of Bar Counsel’s NOBC webpage.